1 Application
1.1 These general terms and conditions apply to all services provided by Wesslau Advokatbyrå to its clients.
1.2 When we are engaged to provide you with a service, you accept these general terms and conditions.
1.3 If a written engagement letter has been provided to you in connection with a specific engagement, the terms of the letter shall prevail over these general terms and conditions if and to the extent that the terms are inconsistent with each other.
2 Identification and personal data
2.1 We are the data controller for the processing of personal data carried out in the course of the law firm’s activities. The personal data processed may relate to our clients and other data subjects. We process the personal data of clients and others in accordance with the privacy policy in force from time to time (labelled “How Wesslau Law Firm processes your personal data”) and available on our website wesslauadvokatbyra.se. We disclose the information about the processing of personal data to the client in connection with the client entering into an agreement on the assignment. The client understands and accepts that the law firm must process the client’s personal data in order to be able to perform the assignment and comply with the legal requirements regarding, among other things, documentation and verification of identity.
3 Assignments and services
3.1 When providing our services, we comply with the Swedish Bar Association’s Code of Conduct.
3.2 For the performance of the assignment, several of our employed lawyers may be involved. This is solely to ensure that you are offered the expertise and resources required to perform the assignment in an appropriate manner. The number of people involved in the assignment may change over time. At the beginning of the mission, a responsible partner for the mission is appointed. You can always contact the partner responsible for the assignment with any questions you may have.
3.3 In order for us to be able to carry out the assignment, you must provide us without delay with such complete and correct information as is necessary for the fulfilment of the assignment. Furthermore, you must ensure that your personnel are available to provide us with such assistance as may reasonably be requested to enable us to fulfil the assignment within the set timeframes or otherwise within a reasonable time and with the same quality. During the performance of the assignment, you must ensure that we are promptly informed of any changes in the conditions for the assignment.
3.4 If you or a third party you have instructed delays in providing information and material or fails to take the necessary steps to enable us to fulfil the assignment, this may cause delays and additional costs for you. In these cases, we cannot be held responsible for the delays and additional costs incurred, whether in the form of increased fees or other costs.
3.5 Unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in the engagement letter, the engagement is based on the information and materials provided by You. When carrying out the assignment, we assume that the information and material provided is correct and complete, which means that we do not independently verify the information and material you provide to us. We are not responsible for any conclusions or recommendations based on inaccurate or incomplete information provided by you or by a third party authorised by you.
3.6 Our services are customised to the circumstances of the individual engagement, the facts and information presented to us and the instructions you give us. Accordingly, you may not rely on a particular piece of advice or work product in connection with any other matter or use the advice/work product for any purpose other than for which it was provided.
3.7 Draft documents that we provide to you during the performance of the engagement do not constitute our final opinion. This means that you cannot rely on, act or refrain from acting on the basis of such drafts.
3.8 Unless we have specifically agreed otherwise, our advice does not cover possible tax consequences in the specific engagement or assessments of the legal situation in jurisdictions other than Sweden. However, we have an extensive network of other professional advisers and experts in Sweden and abroad and are happy to assist in identifying and instructing other professional advisers and experts on specific issues, such as obtaining necessary advice from lawyers in the relevant jurisdiction.
3.9 If we instruct, engage and/or work with other professional advisers or experts, those advisers or experts shall be deemed to be independent of us, which means that we accept no responsibility for recommending them to you or for any advice or other services they provide to you. We will not be liable for any fees or expenses charged to you by such advisers or professionals.
3.10 The engagement agreement is a contract with Wesslau Advokatbyrå and not with any natural person associated with us. We therefore accept your assignment as an assignment for the law firm and not for an individual lawyer. This applies even if it is your express or implied intention that the work is to be performed by one or more specific persons.
3.11 Copyright and other intellectual property rights in the work product we create for you belong to us, but you are entitled to use the work product for the purposes for which it is provided. Unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in the engagement letter, no document or other work product produced by us may be publicly distributed or used for marketing purposes.
4 Confidentiality, archiving and disclosure of information
4.1 We will protect the information you provide to us in an appropriate manner and in accordance with the Code of Conduct of the Swedish Bar Association.
4.2 We communicate with you and others involved in an engagement in several ways, including by e-mail. Although e-mail is an effective means of communication, it involves risks in terms of security and confidentiality. We accept no responsibility for these risks. If you would prefer that we do not communicate by e-mail, for example, please inform the partner responsible for the assignment.
4.3 Our spam and virus filters and other security devices may sometimes reject or filter out legitimate emails. You should therefore follow up important e-mails by telephone with the partner responsible for the assignment.
4.4 Once an engagement is completed or otherwise terminated, we will archive (with us or with third parties and in paper or electronic form) substantially all documents and work products obtained and produced in the engagement. The documents and work results will be archived for the period which, in our opinion, is required by the nature of the assignment, but never for a shorter period than that required by law or the Code of Conduct of the Swedish Bar Association.
4.5 In light of the fact that we are obliged to archive virtually all documents and work results obtained and produced in the engagement, we cannot fulfil a request to restore (without producing and retaining a copy of the relevant document) or destroy a document or work result before the archiving period has expired. In the event that you ask us to delete an electronic file in our document management system, we will comply with your request to the extent permitted by law and the Code of Conduct of the Swedish Bar Association (but we will in such cases retain a paper copy of the documents deleted or save them on an electronic storage medium) and normally for a fee if the work is time-consuming.
4.6 Unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in the engagement letter, we will provide You with all original documents when an engagement has been completed or otherwise terminated. However, as set out in clause 4.4, we will retain a copy of the original documents.
4.7 If we engage or co-operate with other professional advisers or experts in the engagement, we are entitled to disclose such material and other information as we consider may be relevant to enable the adviser or expert to advise or perform the service in question.
4.8 When a matter becomes public knowledge, we are entitled to provide information in our marketing and on our website about our involvement in the assignment and about other information about the matter that is already public knowledge.
4.9 If VAT is not payable on our services to you, we are legally obliged in certain cases to provide information to the tax authority about your VAT number and the value of the services provided. When you engage us, you consent to us providing this information to the tax authorities.
4.10 We are required by law to report suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing to the Financial Intelligence Unit. We are also prevented by law from informing you that suspicions exist and that a report has been or may be made to the Financial Police.
Under Swedish law, lawyers have a duty of confidentiality that prevents us, in our capacity as advisors, from reporting information about cross-border reportable arrangements to the Swedish Tax Agency or other responsible authority in accordance with Council Directive (EU) 2018/822 of 25 May 2018, DAC 6, and Swedish legislation. The duty of confidentiality also means that we are prevented from providing this information to other advisers.
Unless we receive your explicit mandate to report cross-border reportable arrangements to the relevant authority, and the reporting obligation does not fall on another adviser, you are responsible for reporting.
5 Market Abuse Directive and Market Abuse Regulation
5.1 We expect you to inform us when you require us to draw up and maintain an insider list in order to fulfil your obligations under the Market Abuse Directive (2014/57/EU (MAD) and the Market Abuse Regulation (EU) No 596/2014 (MAR) and its underlying rules. If you request a copy of an insider list that you have instructed us to keep, we will provide it as soon as possible provided that the request is made within five years from the date we drew up or dated the list and one day after the list was drawn up or dated. You are required to keep any insider list that we provide to you confidential and to use it only to fulfil obligations under MAR, MAD and the underlying rules.
5.2 We will take all necessary steps to ensure that persons included in an insider list are aware of the legal and other obligations that this entails and the penalties that exist for market abuse and improper dissemination of inside information.
6 Termination of the assignment
6.1 You may terminate the cooperation with us at any time by requesting in writing that we withdraw from the engagement. However, you must pay us for the services we have provided and the costs we have incurred prior to the termination of the engagement.
6.2 If there are suspicions of money laundering or terrorist financing as set out in clause 4.10, we are obliged to decline or withdraw from the engagement.
7 Fees and costs
7.1 Our intention is to provide you with legal services at market rates and we are always willing to discuss these with you and also, in cases where the engagement is well defined, agree on a fixed fee for the engagement. Upon request, we will provide you with an estimate of our fee at the beginning of an assignment and, depending on the nature of the assignment, we may also agree on a budget or other fee arrangement. A fee estimate for a matter is based on the information available to us at the time of the estimate and is not a fixed price offer. All fee amounts are quoted exclusive of VAT.
7.2 Our fees are in accordance with the Code of Conduct of the Swedish Bar Association. Unless we have specifically agreed otherwise in the engagement letter, our fees are determined on the basis of the scope and nature of the engagement, the difficulty and importance of the engagement for you, the skill and experience required by the engagement, the values involved in the engagement, any risks for us, the time made available to us for the fulfilment of the engagement, the result achieved in the engagement and the time spent on the engagement.
7.3 At your request, we will provide a detailed account of the work performed in the engagement. As our fee is only partly determined by the time spent, we do not undertake to provide a detailed time statement detailing each action and/or work step performed and the associated time spent.
7.4 In addition to our fee, you may be invoiced for travelling and other expenses related to the performance of the engagement. Normally, we pay limited expenses on your behalf and invoice these in arrears. However, we may request an advance for expenses or forward the relevant invoice to you for payment.
7.5 In the event that a fixed fee has been agreed, this will only apply provided that you have provided us with complete and correct information about the assignment in the period before the fixed fee was agreed and that you fulfil your obligations in accordance with what is stated in paragraph 3.
7.6 In court and arbitration proceedings, the losing party may be ordered to pay the winning party’s legal costs (including lawyers’ fees). However, not all of the winning party’s costs are always recoverable. However, whether you are the winning or losing party, you will have to pay for the services we have provided and for the costs we have incurred in representing you in court or arbitration proceedings.
7.7 If you have legal expenses insurance, you may, under certain conditions and to a certain extent, receive reimbursement from the insurance for your legal expenses. The right to reimbursement is usually limited in various ways, such as deductibles and caps, which means that the insurance coverage does not cover all costs. The main terms and conditions of the policy are often set out when the insurance company confirms the claim in writing. For full information on the terms and conditions of the policy, you should read the policy conditions.
7.8 In certain cases, individuals may be entitled to general legal aid. If general legal aid is granted, special conditions apply to the charging of fees. General legal aid never covers liability for the other party’s costs.
7.9 If you wish to utilise legal protection or legal aid, you must inform us of this when the assignment is submitted.
7.10 Even in cases where legal expenses cover or equivalent is applied, we are entitled to receive fees and other compensation from you for the assignment in accordance with the usual principles and in accordance with what is stated in this clause 7. Irrespective of legal protection, we are entitled to invoice fees and reimbursement of expenses relating to the assignment on an ongoing basis.
8 Invoicing
8.1 Regular invoicing is a good way to keep you informed of the fees incurred and to avoid negative surprises at the end of an assignment. As a rule, we invoice you monthly. Invoices can be either on account or final. An invoice on account does not necessarily provide an exact estimate of the amount payable for the services we have provided. Where we invoice you on account, the final invoice will state the total fee for the engagement or part of the engagement less the fee invoiced on account.
8.2 Each invoice will state the due date (normally not earlier than 10 days from the date of the invoice). In the event of non-payment, interest will be charged at the rate applicable under the Interest Act from the due date until we receive payment of the invoice.
8.3 In some cases, we will request an advance payment before we commence the assignment. Any advance paid will be used to settle our future invoices. The total amount of our fee for the engagement may be higher or lower than the advance payment.
8.4 In the event that you ask us to issue an invoice to someone else, we may accept this only on the condition that it is clear that the procedure is not contrary to law, that the identity and other circumstances set out in paragraph 2 have been confirmed with regard to the invoice recipient and that you, if we so request, immediately pay the amounts not paid on the due date. There is no client relationship between us and the invoice recipient.
9 Liability insurance
9.1 By maintaining separate liability insurance in addition to the Swedish Bar Association’s mandatory liability insurance, we ensure that we have adequate insurance cover for the business conducted.
Unless otherwise specifically agreed, the law firm’s liability to you is limited to the amounts that can be paid out under the liability insurance.
10 Complaints and claims procedure
10.1 Our intention is that you are satisfied with our services and that they fulfil your requirements. If you are dissatisfied or have a complaint for any reason, you should inform the partner responsible for the matter as soon as possible. If the complaint concerns the partner in charge, the complaint should be addressed to the firm’s Board of Directors. At your request, we will arrange for a partner, who has not been involved in the engagement, to investigate your complaint and endeavour to answer any questions you may have.
10.2 Claims relating to advice provided by us must be made as soon as you have become aware of the circumstances on which the claim is based. No claim may be made later than twelve months after the later of (i) the date of the last invoice for the engagement to which the claim relates and (ii) the date on which the relevant facts were known to you or, after reasonable enquiry, could have become known to you.
10.3 In the event that your claim against us is based on a third party, tax authority or other authority’s claim against you, we shall be entitled to respond to, settle and compromise the claim on your behalf provided that we indemnify you. If you settle, compromise or otherwise take any action in respect of such claim without our consent, we shall have no liability for the claim.
10.4 We cannot be held liable for any damage caused to you directly or indirectly as a result of our compliance with our obligations under clause 2.1 or clause 4.10.
10.5 For the resolution of disputes between a consumer and a lawyer or law firm regarding services provided to the consumer by the lawyer or law firm, there is a Consumer Disputes Board established by the Swedish Bar Association. Further information about this Consumer Disputes Board can be obtained at www.advokatsamfundet.se/konsumenttvistnamnden The Consumer Disputes Board has the following contact details: Konsumenttvistnämnden Box 27321 102 54 STOCKHOLM Telephone: 08-459 03 00 E-mail: konsumenttvistnamnden@advokatsamfundet.se
11 Amendments
11.1 These terms may be amended by us from time to time. The latest contract version is always available on our website: www.wesslauadvokatbyra.se
11.2 Amendments to the terms and conditions only apply to the assignments that have commenced after the amended contract version was published on our website.
11.3 A copy of the latest version of these terms and conditions will be sent to you on request.
12 Applicable law and dispute resolution
12.1 These general terms and conditions and (if applicable) the engagement letter and all matters relating to them, our engagement and our services shall be governed by and construed in accordance with Swedish law.
12.2 In addition to the review set out in 10.5, disputes arising in connection with these general terms and conditions, the assignment confirmation (if applicable), our assignment or our services, shall be finally settled by arbitration in accordance with the Rules for Expedited Arbitration of the Arbitration Institute of the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. The seat of arbitration shall be Stockholm and the language to be used shall be Swedish.
12.3 Arbitration proceedings initiated with reference to Clause 12.2 and information obtained during the proceedings as well as any decision or award rendered as a result of the proceedings shall be confidential and may not be disclosed to any third party without the written consent of the other party. However, a party shall not be prevented from disclosing such information in order to preserve its rights in relation to the other party or to an insurer or if such obligation exists under mandatory law or regulations for issuers or similar.
12.4 Notwithstanding the provisions of Clause 12.2, we shall be entitled to bring an action in the ordinary courts in respect of claims for fees.